Automation istransforming how we work — but even in 2025, not every task is best handled by
AI. One of the most deceptively tricky examples? Converting data from PDFs into
structured Excel files when the PDF is of poor quality, unstructured or has a
complex layout.

If you're a senior manager overseeing data, operations, or client deliverables,
you've likely come across tools that promise quick, automated conversions. But
here’s the truth:

AI tools can fall short — especially when precision, context, and formatting
really matter.

Our extensive experience has shown us that despite constant advancements and development, AI still struggles with:

- Files that are of poor quality or are scanned as opposed to being the original PDF file.
- Non-standard layouts — Variations in column alignment, merged cells, rotated tables
- Encrypted files — Password-protected or restricted PDFs are unreadable by bots
- Large file sizes — 1,000+ page PDFs can crash or timeout AI tools
- Visual formatting — Graphs, watermarks, and logos confuse automated parsing
- Intentional protections — Some files are locked down specifically to prevent automated copying

The result? Data gets jumbled, numbers are dropped, and valuable time is wasted correcting AI's output. Many of out clients have also commented that they prefer to outsource the work because they simply don't have the time to deal with it. What they actually want is visibility and consustency from their PDF data.

These aren’t fringe problems. They affect professionals across as our client list shows. We have and continue to work with:

- Academic researchers extracting survey or archival data
- Logistics companies pulling figures from freight invoices
- Law firms working with scanned court documents or evidence bundles

- Property developers organizing details from land assessments and planning reports
- Financial managers handling complex investment summaries
- Marketing managers sourcing campaign metrics from formatted reports.

- Digital Mareketers and solo-entrepeneurs how want to track advertising campaigns, inventory, sales and more.

Across all these industries, the cost of bad data is high — and AI errors can quietly snowball into poor decisions, reduced revenue or even regulatory and legal exposure.

One of our recent clients, a US-based educational research department, needed to capture selected content from university student registers covering a period going back 100 years as part of a research project commission by private industry into educational standards over the last century.

Initially they tried approaching a large, reputable AI conversion agency, but the data was poor in quality, unstructured, constantly changing in layout and also needed to be transformed into a standard layout once it had been extracted from the PDF files so it could be easily imported into a database.

The data set was large, some 100,000 pages in total with many entries (or records) per page, so they next decided to batch the files by university or year and hire many individual freelancers from the various online freelance marketplaces. The result? An exponential increase in expensive project management overhead coupled with poor results that often resulted in rework requirements and doubling or trebling of budgeted freelancer fees because the work had to be completed twice or even three times.

Realizing that this approach was also unworkable too, the client approach SB Business Support with a Request For Information (RFI) as to whether we would be able to accommodate 100% outsourcing of the project, which we did and within a few months all the data had been correctly and accurately extracted and transformed so the client was able to efficiently work with their data to fulfill their project requirements.

Hiring a skilled, experienced freelancer or team isn’t about rejecting technology. It’s about knowing when human intelligence outperforms automation.

Benefits include:
- Accuracy: No machine guessing — every field reviewed and validated.
- Efficiency: No wasted time fixing poor extractions.
- Security: NDAs and data handling protocols in place.
- Cost-effectiveness: Pay only for what you need, no software subscriptions required.
- Tailored output: Get the spreadsheet exactly the way your team needs it.

Additionally, there is no need for you to stay ahead of the tech curve become an AI expert, data extraction expert, spreadsheet guru or a data analyst when all you actually need is your data so you can make informed decisions and run your business or deliver your objectives.

At SB BusinessSupport Services, we’ve supported law firms, researchers, logistics providers, property developers, financial professionals, and marketing teams — all with one thing in common: the need for clean, structured data, delivered right the first time.

Whether you have three files, three thousand or tens of thousands of file, our team will handle it with accuracy, confidentiality, and efficiency.

If you have complex PDF to Excel data extraction requirements in your business, whether a one-off project or an ongoing need, contact us today to discuss your challenges.